Yesterday, I reached a clearly winning pawn ending and blew it. My opponent then returned the favor and gave me the victory. Our errors have some instructive value. There is a difference of one tempo between the position reached in the game and the position that it might have reached. White to move After 58...Kxh4 White is winning. White to move Possible position after 57...Kxh4 Black can hold the draw. Let's examine the ending and the errors. White to move After 47...Ke6 48.Ke4?? Correct was 48.Kc4, when after 48...Kxf6 49.Kb5 Ke7 50.Kxa5 Kd7 51.Kb5 Kc7 52.Kc5 ..read more

Young chess players are quick to attack pieces directly. Learning to anticipate the opponent's plans and prevent them does not come naturally. In my experience, young beginning players must be shown this simple mate in two many times before the idea of cutting off sinks in. White to move It is an ancient exercise that I first recall seeing and beginning to use with students while perusing Bruce Pandolfini, Pandolfini's Endgame Course. With a group of students who are finishing the Pawn Award and beginning to work towards the Knight Award, I prefaced this position with two others from this we ..read more

It has been a goal of mine to acquire 64 endgame books before I reach the age of 64. That birthday comes soon and I need one more. What shall I add to my existing collection? Will it gather dust on the shelf, or will it be one that I read? The main shelf The category of "endgame books" is not perfectly clear. Do works on checkmate patterns fall into this group? I keep those books separate, although checkmate exercises were called "end-games" in nineteenth century chess periodicals and books. I do include studies, although some would put these in a separate category. There are some c ..read more

White played 42.Kb2 and offered a draw. White's remaining time is 2:11; Black has 5:57. This is a ten minute Arena game and White is higher rated by nearly 200. Black to move Black is on bottom Would you accept the draw offer? If not, what would you play ..read more

As tournament director for my city’s youth events, I see a lot of examples of basic skills not yet learned. In one game today, I spent quite a bit of time watching a player with several pieces endlessly checking a lone king. The stronger side had a queen, bishop, and knight. Shortly after I began watching, he missed a mate in one. Thirty or forty checks later, his opponent captured the knight. Checks continued. Occasionally, I noticed that he seemed to be reaching for his king, but then grabbed the queen and checked again. After the bishop was captured, I began counting moves, thinking I migh ..read more

Drawing a lower rated player can be frustrating. This morning, I was forced to make my peace with such a fate. My opponent's rating was 400 below mine. Black to move 54....Qg3+ 55.Kg1 Qe1+ 56.Kh2 I considered playing Qf1, but Black has a winning pawn ending. A draw is less damaging than a loss. 56...Qe3 Now, it is my turn to show that I can force a draw. 57.Qe8+ Kf5 58.Qd7+ Kf4?? Black made a poor decision in an effort to escape the draw. 59.Qg4# In the very next game, my opponent was rated 200 higher than me and allowed us to reach a drawn opposite colored bishop ending. We had been ..read more

An entertaining game from P. H. Clarke, 100 Soviet Chess Miniatures (1963) offers a lesson in vulnerability. White’s king appears more exposed, but Black’s king is in mortal danger on its starting square. Black to move The game is Barshauskas — Chesnauskas, Championship of Lithuania 1955. Black’s problems stem from the greater mobility and coordination of White’s forces. As Clarke notes, “It is worth remarking that while the position of the Black king in the centre is of the utmost import, the comparatively exposed state (i.e. to the normal castled position) of the White monarch is of l ..read more

This morning I became obsessed with solving puzzles on chess.com. For some of them, I spent a few minutes calculating. For others, I moved almost instantly, believing the puzzle was simple pattern recognition. Errors were frequent. When I failed a puzzle, I tried again, working it until I found the answer. One puzzle was ridiculously easy. As it came after failing four of the previous five, I had the sense that the site’s programming is designed to poke fun at me. White to move At this point, I had solved six correctly and failed eight. My tactics rating had dropped 35 points. As the sessio ..read more

During a blitz game this afternoon, I constructed what I hoped was a fortress. The time control was 5 minutes plus a three second delay. I was playing on the increment with 17 seconds left for a long time. My opponent was burning time trying to find a winning idea. When he was down to 3 seconds and I still had 7, I suggested a draw. He wasn’t convinced it was a fortress, but accepted the draw. White to move How can White break down Black’s defense ..read more

Chess is a drug. Joseph Blackburne called it, "mental alcohol". In moderation, the game can enrich a balanced life. A well-played game offers pleasure not only during and immediately after play, but often for many years. For long-term pleasure, for example, there is my fifth round game that led to second place in the 2012 Collyer Memorial. I was playing not to lose. My opponent took the game down a path where a draw was extremely unlikely. We both thought I was worse, but I soldiered on, playing strong moves to keep myself in the fight. Then, after spending substantial time calculating some ..read more